Issues with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards Bill Canis Specialist in Industrial Organization and Business March 24, 2017 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov R44800 Issues with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards Summary Federal motor vehicle safety regulation was established more than 50 years ago by the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (P.L. 89-563) to address the rising number of motor vehicle fatalities and injuries. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) administers vehicle safety laws and has issued dozens of safety standards, including regulations affecting windshield wipers, hood and door latches, tires, and airbags. NHTSA has estimated that between 1960 and 2012, federal motor vehicle safety standards saved more than 600,000 lives, and the risk of a fatality declined by 56%. Although dozens of technologies were made subject to federal standards in the decades after federal regulation began, a NHTSA study reported that more than half of the lives saved—329,000—were from use of seat belts. While the federal standard was helpful in reducing fatalities, the study found that the passage of state laws allowing police to issue tickets if a driver or passengers are not wearing seat belts caused the number of lives saved to climb from 800 per year to 6,000 per year. In addition to promulgating and enforcing vehicle safety standards, NHTSA investigates vehicle defects that affect safety and issues vehicle or parts recalls if safety defects are discovered. In recent years, the number of vehicle and parts recalls has risen significantly, from 16.3 million vehicles and parts in 2013 to 87.5 million in 2015. The rising number of recalls is due to stricter laws and reporting requirements, larger fines, delayed detection of vehicle problems by NHTSA, and several high-visibility cases, including General Motors’ faulty ignition switch and Takata airbags. Recalls rarely obtain 100% completion rates, leaving many defective vehicles on the road long after a recall is initiated. A recent study by J.D. Power, a market research company, showed that between 2013 and 2015, recalls of fewer than 10,000 vehicles had a 67% completion rate, while recalls of more than a million vehicles had a completion rate of only 49%. The larger recalls are thought to result in fewer repaired vehicles because of the difficulty in finding and notifying larger numbers of owners, a lengthened repair period due to lack of an adequate supply of replacement parts, and the ability of manufacturers to use more personalized communications, such as telephone calls, in smaller recalls. Many emerging technologies, such as automatic emergency braking and lane departure warning, are expected to reduce vehicle injuries and deaths in the future. Over time, these separate technologies will be combined as vehicles are built with higher levels of automation. To deal with these rapid changes, NHTSA has broadened the agency’s approach beyond the traditional rulemaking to include new means of interacting with manufacturers and other vehicle safety stakeholders, such as voluntary agreements to accelerate use of life-saving technologies. The 2015 Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act included significant vehicle safety provisions, including a new requirement that rental car fleets be covered by recalls, new methods for notifying consumers about recalls, larger penalties for violations, and a longer period for consumers to obtain remedies for defects. Congress remains interested in motor vehicle safety; proposed legislation calls for used vehicles to be subject to recalls, NHTSA to provide more public access to safety information, civil penalties to be increased, regional recalls to be terminated, and federal standards to be issued to secure electronic motor vehicle data from hackers. Congressional Research Service Issues with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards ......................................................................................... 2 Estimates of Effects of Federal Safety Standards ..................................................................... 3 Trends in Vehicle Recalls ................................................................................................................ 5 Why Have Recalls Increased? ................................................................................................... 7 Recall Completion Rates Remain an Issue ............................................................................... 9 New Technology and Vehicle Safety ............................................................................................. 10 Technological Advances ........................................................................................................... 11 Consumer Demand .................................................................................................................. 13 Regulatory Mandates .............................................................................................................. 14 Reforming the Regulatory Process ................................................................................................ 15 New Vehicle Safety Laws .............................................................................................................. 16 Issues Before Congress ................................................................................................................. 19 Figures Figure 1. Motor Vehicle and Equipment Recalls ............................................................................. 6 Tables Table 1. Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities and Fatality Rates ........................................................... 1 Table 2. Levels of Vehicle Automation ......................................................................................... 13 Contacts Author Contact Information .......................................................................................................... 21 Congressional Research Service Issues with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards Introduction In 1956, the year Congress authorized the Interstate Highway System, there were 37,965 fatalities on U.S. roads—6.05 fatalities for every 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT).1 The construction of limited-access highways spurred travel by automobile, leading to an increase in the number of fatal accidents. Congress responded with a series of laws that have helped reduce the fatality rate by 80% over the past six decades. By 2014, the United States recorded only 1.08 fatalities for every 100 million VMT, although the rate ticked up to 1.13 per 100 million VMT in 2015 (Table 1), and again in the first 9 months of 2016, when fatalities rose to 1.15 per 100 million VMT.2 Table 1. Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities and Fatality Rates Fatality Rate per Million Vehicle 100 Million Miles Traveled Vehicle Miles Year Total Fatalities (VMT) Traveled (VMT) 1956 37,965 627,843 6.05 1966 50,894 925,899 5.50 1976 45,523 1,402,380 3.25 1986 46,087 1,834,872 2.51 1996 42,065 2,484,080 1.69 2006 42,708 3,014,371 1.42 2011 32,479 2,950,402 1.10 2012 33,782 2,969,433 1.14 2013 32,893 2,988,280 1.10 2014 32,744 3,025,656 1.08 2015 35,092 3,095,373 1.13 Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Development of new motor vehicle technologies, investments in building safer highways and educating motorists, and improving emergency medical services all have contributed to reduced fatality rates.3 Congress has played a significant role in improving highway safety by directing the federal government to impose and enforce safety standards for motor vehicles. This effort has been at times controversial, and several large recalls have raised questions about the effectiveness of federal motor vehicle regulation. 1 President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 into law on June 29, 1956. 2 Motor vehicle traffic fatalities rose by 7% in 2015 and by 8.3% in the first nine months of 2016. NHTSA, Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities for the First 9 Months of 2016, DOT HS 812 358, January 2017, https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812358. 3 C. J. Kahane, Lives Saved by Vehicle Safety Technologies and Associated Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, 1960 to 2012, NHTSA, DOT HS 812 069, January 2015, p. x. Congressional Research Service 1 Issues with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards In the early decades of the automobile, U.S. vehicles were lightly regulated by a combination of state and private-sector standards. National regulation was generally not seen as appropriate; in the early 1900s, according to two historians of auto safety, it was widely believed that “the only useful and politically acceptable action Congress might take was to help the states and localities construct more and better roads.”4 The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), a professional association founded in 1905, became the primary source of vehicle safety rules for many decades. State governments often used SAE recommendations to set their own standards for vehicle brakes, headlamps, and windshield wipers. At the same time, the rising number of highway deaths prompted a new interest in vehicle safety: between 1962 and 1964, Congress passed three safety bills into